Low cost and quick time absorption of organic dye pollutants under ambient condition using partially exfoliated graphite

Abstract

Worldwide, the removal of organic effluent dyes from domestic water is of high need due to the lesser availability of drinking water. In the present work, we reported on the synthesis of partially exfoliated graphite from corn cob and its ability to adsorb halogenated organic dyes. The synthesis of partially exfoliated graphene (PEG) showed the ability to adsorb the organic dyes at a quick time of about 5 s, even without any additional mechanical and radiation requirements. The adsorptive behavior of partially exfoliated graphite was conducted in an ambient condition, in the presence of halogenated organic dyes such as Methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) as the adsorbate model. From the UV–vis absorption studies, it was observed that 1 mg of this sample had the efficiency to adsorb 0.1 mg/mL of MB and 0.01 mg/mL of RhB with the adsorption efficacy of 45 % and 75 %, respectively. The adsorption performance was well fitted with non-linear Gaussian regression plot for MB (R2 = 0.9841) and RhB (R2 = 0.7781).The photoluminescence studies also show that decreases in the intensity from the initial concentration of the MB and RhB dyes. The deconvoluted photoluminescence spectrum for both MB and Rh B showed peak broadening with peak shift for MB and the merged peaks for Rh B. The results suggested that, the partially exfoliated graphite can be utilized as an efficient low cost recyclable adsorbate for organic dye domestic effluent at low cost and also at a sustainable way. The partially exfoliated graphite also observed the possibility of hydrogen evolution reaction and opens the option of metal doping for futuristic applications.